So first I'll give some background. For my English class, we were split into groups and tasked with writing speeches of some sort. My group chose to do a graduation speech, mostly because all of us felt like writing something a bit more light hearted as opposed to doing something serious all the time. None of us are actually graduating soon, we just chose the topic for fun. Anyway for my part I decided to do something a bit different by essentially writing a little rhyme poem. I showed it to Fyredove who helped me think of a last rhyme and after some thought I decided I might as well share it here on vizzed. It does contain a bit of dark humor on my part so beware. Some of it is also based on inside jokes in my class but not to the point where it should make it hard to get. Hopefully you will find it humorous, if not... I'm so sorry.

Here it is:


The day of graduation has finally arrived.
I can’t believe I actually survived.
Now I’m standing here a bit nervous…
Celebrating how I’m certifiably workless.
Maybe a year from now I’ll live in a shack.
Unable to make a single wisecrack.
Well all is not lost, I’m not in complete crisis.
I have great future prospects, joining ISIS.

It is also with the utmost of seriousness
That I tell you all of my amazing experiences.
It was with great pride I became a world explorer.
I became lost and the pride quickly turned to horror.
Wandering around aimlessly, I stopped for a break.
Resulting in me being attacked by a snake.
How did I escape? Who knows.
All I know is that I only have nine toes.

Okay, I’ll admit I jest.
But these past few years have been a test.
Taking French was a mistake.
I realized that a few years too late.
Once I did I abandoned ship as fast as I could.
Alas, it was too late, I was marked for good.
I still have flashbacks to the exam night.
To date, the only love story worse than Twilight.

Now, I have many important lessons to share.
(for instance)
If you can sit somewhere, you can sleep there.
Whatever you do though, don’t sleep during maths,
or your future job will become giving old people baths.
I didn’t and I can factorise an expression.
I have no use for it, but it gives off a good impression.
So consider everything I’ve now said.
I’m sure we all have bright futures waiting ahead.

There's a tough line between writing something light-hearted and funny and coming across as cynical and angry. It's the difference between joking about cancer as a disease and telling people you have cancer as a joke. There's a fine line.

I read what you said and I think it's a little off. It comes across as you had a bad experience and you're not happy and you just aren't going to be successful. If I were a teacher or an instructor and I heard that, I'd think, "Wow, I missed the mark on that student. I wonder what went wrong."

It's not bad. In fact it works really well if you didn't have a great time at school. But I'd take a little off the top with the negativity. That's just me.

It's good writing. Keep at it.

Just as some feedback from someone a little closer to your age, I thought it was hilarious. Most kids have negative feelings about school in one way or another, and I thought your writing makes light of that negativity.

If you give a slight foreword saying it might be a little dark, or your peers / teachers understand your sense of humor as an individual, even to just a small extent, they'll probably be pretty understanding.

Either way, it's really good.

The problem with your poem is that it's split in tone. It seems like it's partly parody and partly not. My opinion is that it needs some work, both in tone and in flow. Like for example, at the end, the narrator tries to teach a lesson in seriousness whereas the rest seems largely bitter and silly. The end result is that the speech/poem is less funny than it could have been/could be. I suggest you try to make the tone and theme consistent, and work on your flow. If you focus so much on including such-and-such joke or this-and-that, any poem would suffer. Focus less on the inside jokes, and clarify your vision. Don't just go with the flow. See the endgame, and work towards that. Go for it!

This is pretty good. But I think you really should keep your jokes all in one section when doing something as important as a speech. You did great though, I know you can only grow stronger. You can do it, Zlinqx!

*Insert comment that makes you regret sharing it here*
Was that too cynical or plain spoken for a Vizzed post? Probably. Oh well, now you're not alone.


As a simple humor writing I loved it. My favorite parts were the comment about the snake and nine toes, part about sleeping anywhere you can sit, and the especially cynical and completely true "certifiably workless". That last bit carried as much seriousness about the brokenness of the arrangement of the school/work system as it did humor which is why I liked it so much honestly.

Really I didn't find it dark. Does that make me like...really dark? lol


As a writing for school: I honestly see a B here if I'm a the teacher, a good grade, but not as good as it could have been for straight up quality. Not because it isn't good material, but because it feels like you have so much ability but don't care enough to use it to it's fullest potential. Like you weren't taking it seriously. The grade would be as much an attempt to spur you on to try to meet that potential (punished for being capable. Shame, huh?) as anything.


The comment on work prospects with ISIS didn't sit well with me at all. I got the humor and intention behind it though, it just crossed a personal line for me. Maybe that was where all of the dark humor was at? Lol


But yeah, this was good writing all in all. You have talent, man. Nicely done.

Ghostbear1111 :
Eirinn :
Mynamescox44 :
supernerd117 :
A user of this :

Something I should've mentioned is that I already held the speech before posting it on here. As for the sense of humor it is probably more cynical than people are used to seeing me on here. That's partly because I tend to have a cynical sense of humor at times and partly because my main goal was to try and evoke some laughs and so I wrote it with my classmates in my mind. Maybe it's just Swedes in general or at least my class that is cynical lol. It's not me being discontent with where I'm at in life though, I'm happy with the school I'm going to and I enjoy the subjects I'm taking (for the most part) even if some of it does reflect personal opinion.

I could've probably improved the flow and structured it better overall but we didn't have a ton of time and the main goal was more just to give a speech of some sort.  In my case to make the people in my class laugh. If I was planning on getting a job that involves creative writing I would've probably been more thorough. It is also worth noting that I am taking English as my secondary language though that might be obvious enough without me saying it. Even if it might seem lazy on my part, I probably put more time into it than most, more than anyone else in my group since they just did a boring run of the mill speech while I went for something more creative. As for what my teacher had to say she didn't seem to mind the content aside from a slight note on the ISIS line, other than that she was more on about my intonation and general pronunciation (apparently I have a tendency to not be loud enough when speaking).

Zlinqx - What did you say? Speak up boy!

Ghostbear1111 :
Mynamescox44 :
supernerd117 :
A user of this :
I don't know about you guys, but I couldn't hear a word he said. Just me?



Zlinqx (again. Yay!) - Like I said, I liked the writing as a whole. It was meant to be silly and fun, and it accomplished just that. It was funny and witty I thought. It never really sounded like you meant a word of it (I mean who writes like that when they do? For class anyway. Lol).

I think the context is what made this as good to me as it was (the fact it wasn't an actual speech, but rather a school project about speeches), though that said, it's good writing either way.

And about the whole being quiet thing, it's extremely common for public speaking (I know I do the same thing lol). If I'm not mistaken, Glossophobia is one of the most common fears among people in general, though it varies greatly in degree. I can deliver a speech ok, but on the inside I nearly have an anxiety attack, for no rational reason whatsoever lol.

If the target audience enjoyed what you had to say, who cares what the critics think? (No offense to anyone here, just an "in general" statement )

Zlinqx : You've got skills, definitely. I really just feel it could have been better. It wasn't bad. I just really like to see people hone their skills and use them better and better. You did good. And personally, I'm not your Mom or Dad I'm just a guy over here giving advice, for better or for worse. To the future! Also, I thought of this when you talked about your teacher's advice..."What's that about ISIS? Talk louder boy, I can't hear you! Tell the class how great we are...um, I mean about how you totally don't want to join ISIS. Yeah."

Zlinqx : What? I can't hear you..

Alright, that makes a whole lot more sense! lol

Like I've said to you before, you speak (write) English better than a lot of native English speakers I know. 

Great poetry. My issue tho... "mistake" and "late" don't rhyme.
You broke the rhyming scheme... so F+ 

Vanelan : NO I WAS HOPING NO ONE WOULD NOTICE THAT BECAUSE I COULDN'T THINK OF A GOOD REPLACEMENT RHYME.

Not even my teacher seemed to notice but you did. Now I have been exposed. RIP in pieces Zlinqx's grades.

XD Good job, Zlinqx! That was pretty funny! Hope you got a good grade for it.

But whatever you do, don't join ISIS! D= Not even as a last resort...

Yuna1000 : I mean the whole joke with that line was that it was me being sarcastic. It's not a good idea for literally every single reason one can think of, so rest assured that there's nothing to worry about there

Zlinqx : XD I did think you were being sarcastic, but I added that just in case... =P *Secretly puts the Master Ball labeled Fisk away with some relief* Wouldn't want our brilliant young minds to be wandering off~ lol

But in all seriousness, there have been people that decided to join because they think they're getting paid or whatever, but then they see the  bodies and it's too late to back out... O _ O

... ... 

*Global Glomps you* NUUU Don't go! You mustn't look at the pictures! DX Don't even think about it! T_T You're so full of life and awesomeness and sass and-

Oh. You said you wouldn't go. oO;; Ah. Haha. Ha... Sorry.  ^^0;;